I knew I wouldn't give them a single rating, but doesn't the overall job get aggregated into a single rating? Some items were good. The work quality I guess is where I am concerned. I see I made a lot of mistakes now in my haste to hire someone. Their cover and question responses were the most detailed.

So Preston. What do you recommend for the best most efficient way to find a client/freelancer match? What steps do you take from post to hire? I will accept your answer as the solution and move on from this

I do not know the specifics of this job of course, but one issue that often arises is the client thinking because they know it well, everyone else will understand it immediately. This is a problem with most things in life. We take for granted that we've been thinking on a subject for an extended period and have created specific domain expertise around it. We then start to talk to someone else about it and assume a baseline of knowledge and understanding that the other person cannot possibly have. It may even seem completely trivial and obvious to us but again we forget the other person might not even have a frame of reference for what we are talking about. The moral here is to make sure you take many steps back and allow for a Q&A. Also expect there will be revisions because the freelancer hasn't spent 100 hours thinking of this exact solution like you - the originator of the idea - might have been prior to engaging.

Again, this might not be germane to the specific job in question here. I have no idea. However, it's something to consider if even another client sees this down the line.

I would like to give credit to this as part of the solution if you will. There were a lot of ideas I probably had in my head about how things should be done, that probably didn't get translated into the messages and instructions. I should have made my instructions more specific and then followed up to make sure the instructions were clear. I also should have set up a hierarchy of priorities and established that in the interview and at the start of the contract. Milestones or checkins would help.